Curtis Mayfield

1942

Curtis Mayfield is born in Chicago, Illinois.

1958

Curtis Mayfield joins the Impressions, a gospel-influenced R&B vocal group that enjoys great success in the Sixties with such groundbreaking singles as “Gypsy Woman,” “It’s All Right,” “Amen,” “People Get Ready,” “Woman’s Got Soul,” “We’re a Winner” and “This is My Country.”

1961

Curtis Mayfield hits #2 on the R&B chart and #20 on the pop chart with “Gypsy Woman”.

1963

Curtis Mayfield hits #1 on the R&B chart and #4 on the pop chart with “It’s All Right”.

1970

Curtis Mayfield leaves the Impressions to launch a solo career. His debut album, ‘Curtis’ —released on his own Curtom label—enters the charts in October. It contains frank, topical songs like “(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below We’re All Going to Go” and “We People Who Are Darker Than Blue.”

1972

Curtis Mayfield hits #4 with “Freddie’s Dead (Theme from Superfly)”.

1972

‘Superfly’ tops the Billboard’s album chart for the first of four weeks. This soundtrack to a film about a Harlem drug dealer’s attempt at a final “big score” delivers two major hits

1974

Curtis Mayfield makes the pop Top Forty for the last time with “Kung Fu,” which precedes Carl Douglas’s “Kung Fu Fighting” by two months. However, he’ll crack the R&B Top Forty a dozen more times between 1974 and 1981.

1975

One of Curtis Mayfield’s most unflinchingly realistic and downbeat message albums, ‘There’s No Place Like America Today’, is released.

1982

‘Honesty’, Curtis Mayfield’s strongest album in years, appears to positive reviews.

1990

Curtis Mayfield is paralyzed from the neck down after high winds cause a lighting rig to fall on him at a concert in Brooklyn, New York.

1994

Curtis Mayfield is awarded the Grammy Legend Award at a ceremony in New York.

1999

Curtis Mayfield is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the fourteenth annual induction dinner.